Warning! Amazon gift vouchers expire with no warning

melipona

Thanks for your comment Cally, I too keep a record of my vouchers, but which ones have been applied to my purchases? What does ..."once you've entered the claim code on our site, we'll keep the balance in your account.." imply to you?

The process seems disingenuous to me, money is taken and I cannot see any good reason to expire the vouchers other than to make a profit. The company obviously makes some interest on the deposited money and are assured of that interest until a future sale is made.
If I took £5 from you I would consider that I owed it back to you without an expiry time, I would not expect you to dip into my wallet and take it back without asking, but this is what Amazon do.

Amazon are an e-commerce company, they require you to open an account with them to enable transactions, they have contact information for you, I think that it is reasonable to expect them to provide me with the status of my gift certificates and consider it unreasonable for them to remove their value from my account without providing a reminder. What other money transaction is carried out with such disregard to the consumer?

solodanceparty

wacko911 wrote: »

Why oh Why would anyone ever want to trade cash, accepted everywhere and never expires for vouchers that you can only spend in one store and expire?

I ask for vouchers to certain stores because I want to shop there. For Christmas, I asked for Next vouchers so I could go crazy in the Boxing Day sale, I got loads of sale and non sale stuff.

solodanceparty

cally6008 wrote: »

Crikey me ... I do surveys and get Amazon vouchers for them in the form of an email ... All the emails state " This voucher expires on XX-XX-XXXX"

Surely it's not THAT hard to keep the emails somewhere safe so you know which ones are likely to expire and when

Of course it is! Then they wouldn't have someone else to blame.

RadoJo

Nukumai wrote: »

How difficult could it be for the likes of Amazon to send an email to those with GC balances some weeks in advance of their expiry, reminding them to use them or lose them? Seems fairer all round...

How difficult would it be to make a note of when your voucher expires? And it would be free for you to do that, unlike Amazon sending e-mails.

I can genuinely see why people are frustrated, but I can't believe that people seem to think that if you choose not to read the Ts and Cs which govern a purchase then the company should release you from them.

cooldude255220

lucym wrote: »

Obviously vouchers shouldn’t ever expire...goes without saying.
However I was amused when we went to spend my Woolworths vouchers last month – they were dated 11/08 - we ended up waiting for 20 minutes or so whilst the cashier went to check whether they had expired in August...

:(:(:(:(

melipona

Why should they expire in the first place?
Just because it is the Ts&Cs does not make it a fair and reasonable condition.
If I credited an amount to say a utility company or a corner shop would I expect it to expire?
They state .."once you've entered the claim code on our site, we'll keep the balance in your account.." , no suggestion of an expiry date there, its hidden away in the small print.

So I have a long list of certificates, with a range of expiry dates, Iall of which have been added to my account. I have made numerous purchases and still have a healthy account balance, which certificates were used on those purchases? Did Amazon use them up in expiry date order or maybe in the order that they were applied to my account or numerical order or whatever. Once they are applied to the account you lose all visibility of their status and any list you have is useless.

Amazon, and any other company, should see that it is immoral to take significant value from my account, remember the OP had £600 removed.

sweetbutternut

I usually don't apply mine to my Amazon account till I am ready to use the vouchers. That way I can keep track of the expiry dates and they don't get lumped into an undiscernable mass in the account.

Having said that, I didn't know that once they are applied to your account, they have an expiry date. I still have some to use - hope all is ok - better use them before anything happens due to some illegible small print that I didn't know about!

Thanks for sharing Op.

ncollier1

The Amazon digital balance was actually started in response to an email I sent to them around 1997 when at the time you would send in a cheque and they would hold a balance. You had to email them to get the balance. I suggested that they put an option on the website where you can see the balance and automatically use it as a payment option, and they emailed me back and configured this.

I also think it's terrible how they are handling these digital gift certs. I have written this to them:




Dear Amazon,

I have just found out that Amazon gift certificates expire after one year and I would like to make a complaint that this is not right, specially since Amazon gives the customer no way to track the vouchers or see when the stored gift balance will expire. It is basically theft.

Lets say someone has a long list of certificates, with a range of expiry dates, all of which have been added to their account. If they have made numerous purchases and still have a healthy account balance, which certificates were used on those purchases? Did Amazon use them up in expiry date order or maybe in the order that they were applied to my account or numerical order or whatever. Once they are applied to the account you lose all visibility of their status and the balance showing or any list or records you have made are basically useless because Amazon gives one balance which mysteriously declines when Amazon deduct a voucher on expiry.

I have to ask the question why should you expire vouchers at all. You have received the cash deposit, and put it into a bank account and earned a return on it anyway. Why should you confiscate it from the holder.

You should not make your customers have to put up with this worry and uncertainty. You should do the right thing and stop the vouchers expiring at all, or if you cant do this, show the balance in a tiered approach, showing which parts of the balance expire when.

Generally you provide a great service but please put yourself in the customers position in this respect.

Regards